We're so sorry ...

Our paper has been remiss in publishing "corrections" on a timely basis, if at all.

In response to the gentle olive branch proffered by Dina Hitchcock (Local - 3/5/09), "we" (that would be the "editorial we") will attempt to make amends for the one tenet of the Society of Professional Journalists - "minimize harm" - since that seems to be our weak suit.

1. The Caruso's unpleasantness: we went too far. The story was just fine with loyal Hillers bemoaning the loss of an historically-approved bodega. Former customers were free to fib about the graciousness of the store staff and their appreciation of the absence of those annoying sales slips and all that "sell by" date mess.

But that stuff about John Capoferri and his ilk in early October, according to the CHBA, sounded the death knell for commercial enterprise from McNally's to TLA Video.

How the hell were we to know that those Enemies of Capitalism, Peter Mazzaccaro and Joel Hoffman, had pulled the pin on the global economy all the way to Iceland?

2. Our Contract with The Man requires us to publicize upcoming CHCA elections, facebook the candidates, and announce the winners and losers. We should have left well enough alone.

But noooooooooooo, we had to get all Connecticut Puritan about it. All that time we spent obeying the first tenet of the above-mentioned S of PJ/s. Did you forget already?

"Seek the truth and report it."

Should have been gearing up for the Holiday House Tour and Potpourri. Those society page photos of a tuxedo-clad John Capoferri would not have been an embarrassment to anybody but for our unfortunate autumn tales.

Any cheesy attempt to link the voting irregularities to San Jive Jain and his stable of stealth candidates for the Board was inadvertent.

3. On our watch, *Opinions* became our death trap - our suicide rap. Any screed slagging the CHCA, CHCF, or the CHBA was our crystal meth.

We just couldn't quit it.

Truth be told, for every byzantine rant by Ed Feldman, every lecture from Jim Foster, all those drive-by Ls to the E from Budnick, the Spaeths, Virginia Mallery, we get ten letters from fans and supporters of the status quo heaping praise upon the brave ways and means you cooked up to stifle the discouraging word.

They go in the circular file, of course.

Just kidding.

And so, in closing, in the spirit of detente, we regret Editor John Lombardi's putting a bank robbery on page one, Editor Jim Sturdivant's snide crack, and all news articles about crime on the Hill which may have driven away Ann McNally's well-trained customers.

So, in the brief time we have left to us, we will take your advice. If you want us to print six different letters from Mary Anna Ross Cowper a week, it is a done deal. How about a regular column for Lou "Which Way Do the Wind Blow" Aiello? The place of honor should go to Jane Piotrowski whose "ssoooooooooo" many O/s and DoobyGood manners bread and butter notes have set the standard for Professional Journalists and Methodist church bulletins.

Listen. We aren't dunces. Our own mothers warned us about "left-handed compliments." We get the part in your letter about those K/s in the Koffers. Absolution granted for the "misunderstanding" about the "Loop" articles cleared us of any lingering rumors about our part in costing $$$$ for legal fees.

The standard "avoid the company of bad companions or even the occasion of sin in the appearance of seeming to have had bad companions" was, frankly, redundant. It's old. It's tired. Catholics cannot even muster up the furtive laugh.

As Rumsfeld would say, balls were dropped. Many of your long list of ex-members are jonesing for the sheer drama and cause for snarky hilarity provided by George Parry and his manifesto posted on Town Hall's front door listing the "BANNED FOR LIFE."

As Feldman would say, "Somebody oughta write a book."

Martha Haley